Labels are integral to the packaging business. However, with increasing counterfeiting and pilferage in the retail market, it has now become extremely important for product labels to not just help identify a product but also function as security tags. This is where hologram security labels come into the picture.
What is a Hologram Security Label?
A hologram security label or sticker is a product label that incorporates holography or a holographic foil. Holography is basically a technique that facilitates the manufacturing of 3D (three-dimensional) images. The method entails the use of laser, diffraction, interference, light intensity documentation, and proper illumination of the document. The resulting hologram changes and position with the angle at which the image is being seen. The patterns are generally simple – regular or marginally irregular lines of text or shapes – since they need not be extremely complex to resist counterfeiting or tampering.
Holograms are high-tech visual laser recordings of a 3D picture. The label usually bears several layers of customized artwork impressions. Along with robust security features, the label demonstrates how a bunch of images could be reconstructed or put together as one.Holograms have a complete depth of field and parallax effects due to their high light refraction.
Different Types of Holograms
To holistically understand holographic security labels and how they work, you should know the major types of holograms.
Reflection Holograms
An extremely common hologram type, a reflection hologram hosts a true 3D image that is very close to its surface.
Transmission Holograms
Typically, transmission holograms are viewed using laser light, which is invariable of the same kind used for making the recording. The light gets directed from the hologram’s rear, with the image being transmitted to the side of the observer.
Hybrid Hologram
Between the transmission and reflection types of holograms, several variations could be made. The following are some of those variants:
Embossed holograms
To mass-manufacture holograms for applications such as credit cards, passports, and currency, a 2D interference pattern gets hard-pressed onto wafer-thin plastic foils. The master or original hologram gets recorded on a photoresist, a photosensitive material.
Integral holograms
A reflection or transmission hologram could be produced from a string of pictures of an object. The object could be an outdoor scene, a person, an X-ray picture, or a computer graphic.
Holographic interferometry
Microscopic modifications on an object could be measured quantitatively by making a couple of unique exposures on the altering object.
Multichannel holograms
With alterations in the viewing light’s angle on the hologram, totally different scenes could be seen.
Computer-generated holograms
Holography’s mathematics is now properly understood. Basically, there are three essential elements in holography: the hologram, image, and the light source.
